Comments on: Remote Control a Mac with Screen Sharing in OS X

By: brian

brian — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 13:53:55 +0000

Was going to say the same thing. This is a great option for same-network macs (in my case a mac mini server). TeamViewer’s great because it adds another layer of protection (ex. you don’t need to open VNC ports to access your mac outside of your home LAN). I use teamviewer when I’m away (works great and I can use it on my iphone for free as well) and screensharing when I’m at home but I don’t want to leave my laptop (plus it’s much faster obviously being on the same network than teamviewer).

By: Joe H

Joe H — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 18:26:16 +0000

This is just silly. A current Macbook Pro is way more powerful than many virtual instances running sites that we all know, serving many requests a minute. We used to run a 20,000 unique visitor a day site on a p4 with 512 megs of ram. Seriously…

By: Rhys

Rhys — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 04:30:17 +0000

I have this set up so I can boot my mac using my ipad from work. I use iTeleport. With the screen sharing does it allow anyone on the internet/on my wifi network to view my screen from their laptop without me knowing? Or do they require my login username/password first. I have it set up so the only group is “Administrators”.

By: RazorV

RazorV — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 14:38:05 +0000

This is pretty useless unless you are going to go into the router and port forward to the Mac that is sharing the screen.

Many people don’t even understand Port forwarding so as nice as it may be to share the screen, it’s pretty useless for most when outside their home or office network.

By: Mickey T

Mickey T — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 04:52:42 +0000

This may be A, B, C on a LAN network, but it seems like a can of worms behind a router? I got this working on my LAN but WAN is completely different is it not? Why does this article espouse this procedure as a simple one? When clearly, unless I even know what a DMZ is, or how to open ports on a router, this is a minefield!!! It seems that all this article really does is allow me to avoid getting up and walking over to a computer in another room? When it ‘promises’ remote control…. sorry for the angst, I love OSXdaily – but this headline is misleading…..

By: chuck

chuck — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 18:30:24 +0000

Proper configuration is necessary. Usually a “parent’s” computer is set up behind an Airport (or other) base station. If this is the case, you need to set up port forwarding for port 5900. Airport base stations have a built in setting for this under Port Settings in the Network section of the setup utility. If the computer is connected to the cable modem itself and there is no firewall running (i.e. it has the IP delivered from the ISP, like 24.x.x.x or something similar) then it should work with no additional setup so long as Screen Sharing is enabled in Sharing prefs. If their computer has an IP that looks like 10.x.x.x or 192.x.x.x then it’s behind a router and needs port forwarding setup.

By: chuck

chuck — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 18:26:54 +0000

There are plenty of VNC Viewers available for iOS, which enable you to view your Mac (but not the other way around). I use Screens and iTeleport, but there’s a free one called MochaLite which is ok.

By: chuck

chuck — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 18:24:57 +0000

You only need to open up Port 5900 on your router. Not 5800. Airport Express already has a built in setting for this under Network>Port Settings. It might also help if you create a DHCP Reservation for the computer you want to reach so the IP doesn’t change on her network.

By: chuck

chuck — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 18:20:24 +0000

Macs running 10.4 support this. Just enable Remote Desktop in Sharing Prefs. That enables the AppleVNC Server.

By: chuck

chuck — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 18:18:38 +0000

Not true at all. You can use Screen Sharing app to view any Mac, Windows, or Linux VNC machine anywhere on the Internet so long as it’s reachable and configured properly.

By: Atthead

Atthead — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 00:54:14 +0000

On that router you have to be able to set send broadcast messages to the LAN, as that is what is needed to weak up computers behind that router. Not that easy anyway, unfortunately, as routers doesnot basically support this. Google a lot…

By: statman

statman — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 17:33:34 +0000

I have tried and tried to connect using vmc commands to my parents iMac….both running Mtn. Lion. Does not work?

By: AnonMac

AnonMac — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 15:16:05 +0000

How did you get the old wallpapers to show? I tried copying the folders from Snow Leopard and they don’t show up. I had to copy the pictures themselves to the main folder. Mind you, I only tried this with Lion. I did a clean install for Mountain Lion, so I haven’t tried it there. Does it work now?

By: icebreaker

icebreaker — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 09:23:32 +0000

It is only useful if both machines are on the same network.

By: zinzszoy

zinzszoy — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 19:20:12 +0000

You have to have Wake On LAN enabled (WOL), requires your MAC address